Richard A. DeMillo

Richard A. DeMillo has held senior positions in academia, industry, and government. Currently Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Chair of Computing and the Director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Tech, he is the author of Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities (MIT Press).

Titles by This Author

Colleges and universities have become increasingly costly, and, except for a handful of highly selective, elite institutions, unresponsive to twenty-first-century needs. But for the past few years, technology-fueled innovation has begun to transform higher education, introducing new ways to disseminate knowledge and better ways to learn—all at lower cost. In this impassioned account, Richard DeMillo tells the behind-the-scenes story of these pioneering efforts and offers a roadmap for transforming higher education.

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle—reputable educational institutions, but not considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and other prestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in the Middle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization.